Here nearly 50 artists operated in collaboration with conveners Christian de Vietri, Ben Riding and Heather Webb to bring 6 floors of a doomed-to-demolition hotel site into being as a dense and exploratory journey, a multisensory aesthetic engagement (see Bec Dean’s online report). (This traveling bus tour of Perth’s nether regions has been briefly deferred both out of respect and in response to the need for clearing space around these burning-issues-of-the-moment…stay tuned.) A key spatial intervention was Hotel 6151, for me the hands down highlight of the festival. In the wake of the sad toll of the Bali bombings, it seemed a hypersensitive moment for the presentation of the PVI Collective’s satiric scrutiny of the form and language of security-anxiety and terror-angst in Terrorist Training School. Keen participants threw themselves into hours of life-suit labour realizing the project’s potential as a committed and engaging experiment.Ī key interventionist work, however, suffered a severe case of untimeliness. Another engaging project in MoonGarden was Sussio Porsborg’s Life Suit, a shipping container housing 4 sewing machine stations, the deceptively sweat-shop aesthetic concealing a model for participatory democracy-’the wearer principal.’ People were able to sign up to learn all the necessary sewing skills for each to construct their own ‘life suit’, customizing themselves a calico ‘toile’ from a generic pattern. Despite opaque arcane references and noise spilling in from outside, this work allowed viewers autonomy in navigating their own meditative journeys. The MoonGarden was also the site for The Golden Dawn Project, a performance installation based on the Kabalistic pattern of the Sefirot (Tree of Life) devised by the Eater Presents Collective. The conversion of the park into Moongarden thrust the festival into the public realm with the Strut & Fret performers on their circus rig (especially Shenzo Gregorio’s stunt violin antics), tree-bound trapeze with the E OI collective and the tongue in cheek playfulness of the Lunar Circus. While this involved a degree of struggle and chaos - freak strong winds, rain, street shenanigans and over-policing-this intermingling of art’n’life was ultimately a welcome initiative. One of the key aspects of Artrage 2002 was the strategy of excursions into new spaces, a new network of festival locations ranging from suburban Midland to inner city Northbridge-notably in the park across the road from the new Artrage Breadbox gallery/ Blackbox performance space venues. (See RT51 for an interview with Artistic Director Marcus Canning.) The Artrage festival has long held a crucial position in the arts landscape of WA offering one of relatively few opportunities for a diverse range of local arts practitioners (particularly younger ones) to initiate project-based works that are highly experimental, contemporary and sometimes risky.
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